How useful is iPad 2 to college student?

[heyloo]

How do you take notes on touch screen? Can you do this? Σ(x+y)²

Try Noteshelf app as well, although Note Taker HD is pretty brilliant as well.

For annotating PDFs try iAnnotate PDF app. I couldn't find any other app better than this for working with PDFs.

 

[feflower]

If I was an undergrad again in the humanities, and had limited resources, I would want to try the iPad + BT keyboard combo as my primary academic computer.

There would be some drawbacks such as wanting to cut and paste from a scholarly pdf into a database or an essay. But I think for notetaking in class this combo is the best.

If I had a little more money, it would be the MBA.

If I had no problem with money, I would go with iPad plus 24" iMac.

I got through my first two years of grad school with pen and paper and a desktop mac.

I got through the last two years of grad school with a 13" MBP.

 

[saberahul]

it can be very useful. most of my posts in this forum are on the topic, and i have started a few threads on it. click on my profile and look under statistics for more. a search of the forums will uncover a lot of great discussions.

Ya just do a search for mine as well – I wrote a very detailed post on how useful an iPad is in school (obviously depends on your use). I'd do the search but I'm very lazy.

 

[joshuaginter]

no. you cannot write by hand with an mba. you cannot read regularly (portrait mode) on an mba. you cannot use it all day without a plug (back to back lectures). And, you cannot easily take it out and study (flashcard programs, reviewing notes, etc.--think the bathroom or laying in bed). the ipad and mba do a lot of the same things, but it is surprising how long i go without even turning on my computer. it is just nicer to do stuff with the ipad. it depends a lot on your field of study and how well you use it, though.


how can a five hour battery last all day (assuming you stay on campus more than five hours)? yes, there are people huddled around the outlets. i, on the other hand, am lounging around outside, or just sitting anywhere i please. i don't know of any studies on this preference you mention for the mba, but given that you can type with the bluettooth keyboard exactly the same as with the mba, you can read, and you can handwrite, i don't see the benefit of an mba in class. maybe the students you surveyed just don't know how to use it well. i have found this to be the case, and have given presentations to faculty and students on how to incorporate it into their workflows. it isn't for everyone, but it is certainly something with great potential.


that is a case by case thing. it depends on your budget. for me, i basically have every book, note, receipt, etc. at my fingertips. i have flashcard programs, i have notetaking programs, i have all sorts of things that greatly increase my productivity and learning. i love the mba, but it just isn't very pleasant for reading. to each his own. i don't think you can write it off as a frivolous expense, though.



i can't tell you how nice it is to read, write in the margins, highlight, and then email that to yourself. basically, you get to do exactly the same thing as you would with a regular book, but you can:
a) read all of the notes separate from the book (highlighted and annotated parts get exported)
b) read the book/article anywhere/anytime.
c) find any word anywhere. how many times does the name "john f. kennedy" come up in my notes and the thousands of books and articles i have digitized? i can tell you in a few seconds. an expert in the field couldn't beat that.

i just got back from a meeting with a retired professor. we had a discussion about the usage of a term in one of the texts i am reading. i pulled up every instance of the word from the 16th century in a few seconds and we read through the texts together.

yes, this is possible with the mba, but how likely is it that you will have it charged, on, ready to whip out of your bag, and are you both going to huddle around the screen? probably not. i put my ipad flat on the table and had it all there in seconds.

the ipad has paid for itself time and time again. the mba has its place and i definitely don't recommend the ipad for everything, but on campus, it's usually all i need.

I have to quote the whole thing here. I TOTALLY agree with every rebuttal in this post.

I had an iPad for school before selling it after a summer of it sitting idle. Why did it sit idle over the summer? Because I bought it for school and only used it at school. Battery life is incredible. Reading is incredible.

Only downfall was the lack of keyboard and I hated taking a bluetooth keyboard with me.

If I had an iPad and MBA combo, there would be no school assignment that would go undigitized.

 

[anjinha]

I have to quote the whole thing here. I TOTALLY agree with every rebuttal in this post.

I had an iPad for school before selling it after a summer of it sitting idle. Why did it sit idle over the summer? Because I bought it for school and only used it at school. Battery life is incredible. Reading is incredible.

Only downfall was the lack of keyboard and I hated taking a bluetooth keyboard with me.

If I had an iPad and MBA combo, there would be no school assignment that would go undigitized.

If you don't need a powerful computer I think an iPad + MBA is a great combination for college. I wish the iPad had come out while I was still in college.

 

[kulimer]

Note Taker HD + iPad + stylus.


Digitize them yourself. I just did it for a book this morning. It took me twenty minutes to scan it in, run optical character recognition, and load it onto the iPad. See threads I have started for more about the nuts and bolts. In short, it doesn't matter if it is available digitally or not.


Google scholar, google books, and just about any website is perfectly accessible and enjoyable on the iPad. No problems.

Thanks for sharing. Scanning wouldn't have a the same effect as I wanted, you can't really search through the doc, it's like an image, which really defeats my purpose of wanting a pdf.

But on a lighter note, the best buy iPad deal is almost too hot to pass it on.

 

[ktbubster]

Thanks for sharing. Scanning wouldn't have a the same effect as I wanted, you can't really search through the doc, it's like an image, which really defeats my purpose of wanting a pdf.

But on a lighter note, the best buy iPad deal is almost too hot to pass it on.

Ummmm no....

He said he runs optical character recognition. If I am right - this means he's digitizing it into searchable text. I used to do this with scanned documents for work back in college - its not a big thing for comps to do now. Lots of programs for it to my knowledge. So yes it would have the effect you wanted

 

[palpatine]

Ummmm no....

He said he runs optical character recognition. If I am right - this means he's digitizing it into searchable text. I used to do this with scanned documents for work back in college - its not a big thing for comps to do now. Lots of programs for it to my knowledge. So yes it would have the effect you wanted

exactly. ocr=optical character recognition. ocr=searching possible.

i have access to more books in my little man bag now (most days i only use the ipad on campus) than all of the books in all of the heavy backpacks on campus combined, i can search through them for anything in the amount of time it takes to type the search term, i can annotate and highlight, and i can export those notes (annotations and highlighted sections) separately as a text file. digitized (or digital) textbooks are so far beyond paper.

ittakes only a few minutes for a book. it is no big deal. see the threads i have started (my profile) for more details.

 

[ScribbieMonsta]

Get it!

I got my iphone 4 last year and I love how convenient it is to study on my bed/away from my table UNTIL some bastard stole my phone : / at my own party! Anyways... I didn't get why you will buy a mac air, then an ipad 2. But I am planning to get an iPad 2 cause I think it's really convenient to take it around and to study instead of bring a 15" laptop that doesn't even last enough for two lectures! and you can study on your way from the parking lot/passing period to your other lectures : ) or play with it/listen to music. Why not? I'm getting mine today since I won't be able to get another iphone until next year when my contract ends (thanks to that bastard), but ipad is worth it if you don't have an iphone 4 already : )

 

[palpatine]

i don't really see ow the iphone would be much use beyond social media or other light use.

in terms of college, being able to use the ipad as an ereader is a huge benefit. the iphone will not help here. neither will the mba.

being able to do work on the ipad, especially with an external keyboard, is big too. i do pair my keyboard with my ipod sometimes (and view something else like a book on he ipad), but the screen is too small for serious work like writing an essay.

the ipad also has a really long battery life. it usually gets me through an entire day on campus without needing a charge.

finally, there is cost. the ipad doesn't need to be subsidized by a back breaking data plan. most campuses have wifi access, so 3g is unnecessary.

 

[joshuaginter]

i don't really see ow the iphone would be much use beyond social media or other light use.

in terms of college, being able to use the ipad as an ereader is a huge benefit. the iphone will not help here.

I don't necessarily agree here. IMO, with the iPhone's smaller screen, you are able to read books faster (there are less words per line, therefore your eyes can skip through words a lot quicker). I have found I can read a book faster on my iPhone than on any other device I own, including an actual hard copy of the book.

This is completely irrelevant if you do not like the whole idea of reading an entire book on your phone. I read the Steve Job's biography on my iPhone and personally felt that it was the new way to read books.

 

[kulimer]

@palpatine: I assume Going from Paper to iPad: How to Digitize Stuff is what you are talking about. Pretty well written, but I didn't get how digitize works.

How does the computer recognize words in the picture? How do you ensure its accuracy? Also, isn't scanning pretty tedious work especially if you have a lot pages? What do you do? Anyways, this is pretty neat stuff!

 

[palpatine]

@palpatine: I assume Going from Paper to iPad: How to Digitize Stuff is what you are talking about. Pretty well written, but I didn't get how digitize works.

How does the computer recognize words in the picture? How do you ensure its accuracy? Also, isn't scanning pretty tedious work especially if you have a lot pages? What do you do? Anyways, this is pretty neat stuff!

Thanks for the compliment.

Specialized software (like Adobe Acrobat Pro) looks at the images and figures it out. It's pretty amazing. Its accuracy depends on the quality of your scanned images. In most cases of English scans, I have nearly perfect accuracy. For other languages, like Japanese, the percentage drops.

Scanning can be tedious. I can finish a book, do ocr (optical character recognition), and upload it to my ipad in about 20 minutes. While I am doing it I read a book or check my emails. It's no big thing. It depends on your equipment, of course. If you are using the scansnap it is super easy (just feed the pages through). If you are using a camera, it will probably go more quickly, but you'll probably have to do more work (turning pages and so forth).

For me, it's worth it. For other people, it might not be.

 

[thekev]

You're clearly toy shopping. There's not a real advantage in having an ipad in addition to the macbook air. Most of the people who buy ipads, buy them because they're cool and do not require a flat surface for stability. You can hold the device anywhere and navigate/type with the other hand. If you're going to be setting the device down to take notes or something, the macbook air is still vastly superior. You've got a bigger display, better keyboard than on screen or a bluetooth keyboard would provide, and it runs the vast majority of software you might want to run on it.

 

[kulimer]

Thanks for the compliment.

Specialized software (like Adobe Acrobat Pro) looks at the images and figures it out. It's pretty amazing. Its accuracy depends on the quality of your scanned images. In most cases of English scans, I have nearly perfect accuracy. For other languages, like Japanese, the percentage drops.

Scanning can be tedious. I can finish a book, do ocr (optical character recognition), and upload it to my ipad in about 20 minutes. While I am doing it I read a book or check my emails. It's no big thing. It depends on your equipment, of course. If you are using the scansnap it is super easy (just feed the pages through). If you are using a camera, it will probably go more quickly, but you'll probably have to do more work (turning pages and so forth).

For me, it's worth it. For other people, it might not be.

That sounds really good to me. Another question,

Say, you are reading page 345, want to look a term up in the back (index), then, back to what you are reading. But you just lost your page by going to the back.

What do you do to accommodate that? I do a lot of back and forth.

 

[palpatine]

You're clearly toy shopping. There's not a real advantage in having an ipad in addition to the macbook air. Most of the people who buy ipads, buy them because they're cool and do not require a flat surface for stability. You can hold the device anywhere and navigate/type with the other hand. If you're going to be setting the device down to take notes or something, the macbook air is still vastly superior. You've got a bigger display, better keyboard than on screen or a bluetooth keyboard would provide, and it runs the vast majority of software you might want to run on it.

the ipad costs less, weighs less, has a longer battery life, works as an ereader, enables you to take handwritten notes, and can be used anywhere (bed, bathroom, train, beach, etc). for you it might be a toy. that's cool. to each his own. but, for some of us, it's a workhorse.

That sounds really good to me. Another question,

Say, you are reading page 345, want to look a term up in the back (index), then, back to what you are reading. But you just lost your page by going to the back.

What do you do to accommodate that? I do a lot of back and forth.

like a lot of things with the ipad, it pays to prepare ahead of time. you can bookmark / outline your pdfs with adobe acrobat pro. then, it's easy to flip back and forth. that's what i do.

 

[joshuaginter]

Note Taker HD + iPad + stylus.


Digitize them yourself. I just did it for a book this morning. It took me twenty minutes to scan it in, run optical character recognition, and load it onto the iPad. See threads I have started for more about the nuts and bolts. In short, it doesn't matter if it is available digitally or not.


Google scholar, google books, and just about any website is perfectly accessible and enjoyable on the iPad. No problems.

How would you scan an entire 500 page textbook? If there is a way to do this without ripping off the spine, I am sold on the idea.

 

[torbjoern]

How would you scan an entire 500 page textbook? If there is a way to do this without ripping off the spine, I am sold on the idea.

The easiest way is probably by cutting out all the pages from the book and feeding them through a ScanSnap scanner. It's quite tedious (yet still feasible) to scan the pages one by one on a flatbed scanner, and I recommend this in case you have a rare book to scan or for some other reason don't want to damage it.

 

[palpatine]

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Note Taker HD + iPad + stylus.


Digitize them yourself. I just did it for a book this morning. It took me twenty minutes to scan it in, run optical character recognition, and load it onto the iPad. See threads I have started for more about the nuts and bolts. In short, it doesn't matter if it is available digitally or not.


Google scholar, google books, and just about any website is perfectly accessible and enjoyable on the iPad. No problems.

How would you scan an entire 500 page textbook? If there is a way to do this without ripping off the spine, I am sold on the idea.

Two ways of doing it without destroying the book. 1. Use a digital camera. 2. Use an office quality flatbed scanner. Neither is especially tedious. 500 pages might take me 40 minutes to an hour. See my thread on digitizing for details (in my profile, threads started by me).

Don't use an off the shelf scanner. I've purchased a consumer one before expressly made to scan books (Epson in Japan), but it was slow and didn't produce good results. Your library or local copy shop may have scanners capable of doing it. In my case, our library got "book snap" scanners a few months ago. Not fast, but good enough.

 

[cloud 9]

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Two ways of doing it without destroying the book. 1. Use a digital camera. 2. Use an office quality flatbed scanner. Neither is especially tedious. 500 pages might take me 40 minutes to an hour. See my thread on digitizing for details (in my profile, threads started by me).

Don't use an off the shelf scanner. I've purchased a consumer one before expressly made to scan books (Epson in Japan), but it was slow and didn't produce good results. Your library or local copy shop may have scanners capable of doing it. In my case, our library got "book snap" scanners a few months ago. Not fast, but good enough.

I'd rather spend my time studying the book than taking pictures of it <_<

writing mathematical equations (or anything else that deviates from normal alphabet) with your ipad requires another app, then you have to integrate those equations with a word or pages, or pdf or whatever document...
that's too much of a hassle for something you can quickly do on a laptop.

An ipad is easy for fast on the go information and quick notes...

 

[kulimer]

yeah, the copying part is still pretty tedious, but I am blown away by what you can do though.

 

[AppleDApp]

It's nice, but it a luxury - especially if you already have an Air. I would get an iPhone, and pass on the iPad.

For me, the devices I use from most to least would be:

MacBook Pro
iPhone
iPad

To each their own though...

In my case it's the opposite. my Ipad acts as my laptop for school
then the iphone
macbook pro for more formatting stuff for homework.

I'm in college too and this is what i find about using the ipad2

If you're serious on using the ipad2 expect to spend a lot of time on finding your right way of working, sorting your files and making sure you always use the latest updated ones.

Do you use Goodreader?

I would get a desktop Mac for the serious work, and iPad to take to classes for notes (and then sync up)[/QUOTE]

I definitely recommend this. I'm getting an iMac when the new ones are released.

 

[Deadp1xel]

I use awesome note and iStudiez pro. I almost never use my Mac, unless it's for editing video. My iPad has pretty much replaced my laptop. My laptop would never work out if I had to get rid of my iPad. The short battery life, weight, and size would make it hard to use and work with. The tables at my school are too small to accommodate laptops and their aren't enough outlets in the classrooms for people to plug in.

 

[stevensr123]

I'm a college student, an apprentice and have A MBA. And I'm still going to be getting an iPad 2.

My reasoning is that for simply going into work, The iPad's weight and form factor won't get in the way too much.

And it will be much easier for writing "sticky notes", notes, Reminders etc and I'm going to be putting my pdf's of all my structural design standards on the iPad so I can Read it just like it would be reading a book. Then add in the textbooks that will hopefully have some content I can read....Pure win.

Oh and It's a pretty cool gadget as well!!!

 

[motoleo]

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I thought that the iPad wouldn't be useful at all at first. Until I found out that my University's website is formatted perfectly for the iPad.

You have a MacBook Air, so it's very possible to do without one.

But if you find you yourself wanting to take notes in class or read a PowerPoint with your phone, the iPad actually is way better for that.

And now with the textbook agreement, it gets better. It's not a necessity yet.